There may be times when you are working on a project, and you decide to check on the status of other people that are working on a similar project at the same time. There are benefits that can come from this comparison, but there are also drawbacks that can show up. You might notice that another person is excelling in a part of the project that you are not having the same success with. This can lead to thoughts like: “Is it worth it to continue, if my results might not turn out to be as wonderful as theirs?” The answer is “yes”, since your only actual competition is with yourself, meaning your past results and habits.
A fine way to look at this is in a long-term perspective. How many times have you looked back a few years, and realized that a competitor of yours did not have a significantly negative effect on your results, but that your hard work was the cause of that which was able to be enjoyed by users of your product or creation? You might want to think that other people are on a path, and that you are on a path, but it doesn’t make sense to have their path cause your path to become less risk-filled or courageous.
If a time comes up where you feel like you are partially, or completely, giving up on a project due to the sights of a competitor’s work, understand that your path would not benefit from that procedure. Instead, that would be the time to either spend more time and effort on your own work, learn from the competitor’s success, or even look to team up with the competition, because it may turn out that you would complement each other.
A long-term view also gives you the sense that you should be glad that your “competition” is there. They are the people in the same field as you, or are performing or creating something similar to that which you are, and so you can think of them as being on the same team as you. If you think a few years back to when you were competing with someone for an item, you will probably notice that they were heading in a certain direction from the start, and that you were heading in your own direction, and that the item was, for the most part, irrelevant.
Another way to look at it, which can provide you with a broader view of the situation, is through processing it hypothetically. If a time arose where only you and 100000, or another arbitrary number of, other people could be transported to a new planet to continue to develop the human race, you might realize that you would want to take some of the people you view as successful competitors there, since they were in the same field as you, and were successful in certain aspects of their behaviors. Their success would add to the prosperity of the group on the new planet. The same is true in the reality that you are a part of, in that their helpful force is not to be left unnoticed. It is beneficial to view your competition in a more appreciative fashion, and to view your real competition as your past self, as you improve upon habits and personality traits.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This was a really good and readable post! I consider myself a team worker, but for sure has a lot to learn here. Thanks for sharing your views, experience and knowledge!
Thanks also for your visits and interesting comments. You really enriches the subjects.
Wishing you a great end to your week
RennyBA: Thank you for that. Being a team worker like yourself is a quality that is desired almost more than anything in most corporations. I am glad to have run across your site as well. Your positive pointers here are appreciated.
Hi Armen! Totally agree with your post
At the end of the day, we are running the race with ourselves; the people around us should serve as inspiration/fuel for us to sprint further, rather than get us down. People who think of giving up/abandoning the project because of competitors’ performance actually reminds me of perfectionists – having an all-or-nothing mindset.
Great article Armen, I think you are right how many people begin to look at competition around them, but in reality, they have less impact than the competition with ourselves as we apply that to our own improvements.
Celes: Your point about it connecting to perfectionism makes sense, since it leads in that direction when every error is looked at as one that is being avoided by some competitor in some location. That all-or-nothing mindset doesn’t mesh too well with the natural flow of events.
Mike: I think you worded it in a useful way, in that the impact may be there, but that it is lower than the impact we would have if we focused on our own material. It makes the choice of which thoughts to have easier to make, in a return-on-investment point of view.
When I was an undergrad, I made it a point to be better than my classmates. I was so “afraid to lose” that I even tried to find out their grade point averages so that I could compare my points with theirs. And when I found out that I was doing better, I felt better.
Or perhaps I should say that competition with “other people” could also be good, and at times, satisfying, but you were right too when you said that we only compete against ourselves.
These days, I try to outdo myself in many ways. I want to be more productive this week than I was last week. I want to be a better daughter/sister/girlfriend this year than I was last year.
A very nice and apt article. I too believe in “Get inspired from someone better, but try to better yourself everytime”
pelf: That is also a valid point to bring up, as comparing and contrasting with others could energize you to take more action. Looking to outdo your self from a past week is a surefire way to improve, because you will want to feel that improvement has occurred.
Raju: That is a clean way to look at it, as the goodness that others are sending out can be absorbed, and then you can focus on your own specific changes.
Very good article. Stephen Covey, the author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” preaches a similar path called the abundance mentality. He says that effective people view the world as abundant of all important life resources. He, like you, argues that one person’s success does not take away from yours. I like your article, it is tough to think with abundance in practice, but it is a good path to a higher life. I also like your viewpoint of competitors as team members, since they are trying to achieve the same goals, we can use each other and motivate each other to reach them.
Well done.
Nick: I partially remember reading that part of the book, and that was a suitable connection to the material here. I had forgotten about his abundance point until this reminder. I have to reiterate that last point you bring up in another way as well, as competitors can be thought of as people on the same boat in the ocean. They can travel with us a long way, to the point where we realize that they weren’t our competition at all.
Girl Scouts honor I didn’t read this post before I wrote mine! Weird! Great tips dude!
Hey Bud.
I hear you there. We have similar thinking at times and that is just fine, and yet we are also able to express ourselves differently.
Cool stuff there.
{ 1 trackback }